1.4 The Principle of Life
Organic and Inorganic Beings
Organic beings are those possessing an inner source of activity that gives them life. They are born, grow, reproduce, and die. They are provided with special organs in order to accomplish the various life functions appropriate to their needs and self-preservation. They include human beings, animals, and plants. Inorganic beings possess neither vitality nor their own power of movement. They are formed solely by the aggregation of matter: minerals, water, air, and so on.
One and the same force unites the material elements in both organic and inorganic bodies: the law of attraction, which is the same for all.
The matter of organic and inorganic bodies is always the same matter, but in organic bodies it is animalized.
The cause of the animalization of matter is its union with the vital principle.
The vital principle is both cause and effect. Life is an effect produced by the action of this agent upon matter. However, without matter, the agent is not life, just as matter cannot be alive without the agent. It gives life to all beings that absorb and assimilate it.
The vital principle is certainly one of the elements required in the composition of the universe, but it has its origin in the modifications of the one universal matter. It may be regarded as an element like oxygen or hydrogen, though even these are not truly primitive elements, because they both derive from one and the same principle.
Vitality does not result from a separate primitive agent, but rather from a special property of universal matter that has undergone certain modifications.
The source of the vital principle is in the universal fluid; it is what is called the magnetic fluid, or the animalized electric fluid—an intermediary, the link between spirit and matter.
The vital principle is the same for all organic beings, but it is modified according to each species. It is this principle that enables all species to move and act. It also distinguishes them from inert matter, because the movement of matter per se is not life. Matter is moved; it does not produce movement by itself.
Vitality develops only as the body develops. Without matter, this agent is not life per se. The union of the two is necessary to produce life.
Vitality is in a latent state whenever the vital agent is not united with a body.
The organs as a whole comprise a sort of mechanism driven by the inner activity, or vital principle, residing within them. This vital principle is the motive force behind all organic bodies. It gives impulse to the organs, whose action reciprocally maintains and develops the vital principle—somewhat as friction develops heat.
Life and Death
The death of organic beings is caused by the wearing out of their organs.
Death may be compared to the cessation of movement in a machine that has broken down. If the machine has been badly assembled, it breaks down; likewise, if the body becomes diseased, life leaves it.
A lesion in the heart seems to cause death more often than one in any other organ, because the heart is a life-producing machine. Nevertheless, it is not the only organ in which a lesion causes death; it is only one of the body’s essential parts.
After death, inert matter decomposes and is used to form other beings; the vital principle returns to the vital mass.
After the death of an organic being, the elements that had formed its body undergo new combinations to form new beings. These new beings, in turn, draw the principle of life and activity from the universal source; they absorb and assimilate it, and restore it again to that source as soon as they themselves cease to exist.
The organs are impregnated, so to speak, with the vital fluid, which enables all the body’s components to actively communicate with one another when certain lesions occur and to restore functions that have temporarily ceased. However, when the elements essential for the functioning of the organs are destroyed or profoundly altered, the vital fluid cannot transmit this life-giving movement to them, and the organism dies.
A body’s organs necessarily react upon one another to a greater or lesser extent, and this reciprocity of action results from their being in harmony as a whole. Their functions cease when something destroys this harmony, just as happens in a mechanism when its essential components break down, or like a clock worn out by use or broken by accident, in which there is no longer any motive force to keep it running.
We have an even better image of life and death in an electrical device. Such a device receives electricity and stores it in a latent state, as do all bodies in nature. However, the electrical phenomenon does not manifest until the electric fluid is put in motion by a certain cause; only then can we say that the device is alive. When the cause of the activity ceases, so does the phenomenon: the device returns to a state of inertia. Organic bodies may thus be compared to batteries or electrical devices in which the activity of the vital fluid produces the phenomenon of life; the cessation of this activity causes death.
The amount of vital fluid is not the same in all organic beings. It varies according to species and is not constant in the same individual or among different individuals of the same species. There are those who are saturated, so to speak, with this fluid, while others possess barely enough of it. That is why, for some, life is more active, more energetic, and, in a certain way, more abundant.
The amount of vital fluid may become depleted and insufficient for maintaining life if it is not renewed by absorbing and assimilating substances that contain it.
Finally, the vital fluid may be transmitted from one individual to another. Those who have a greater quantity of it can give it to those who have less, and in certain cases they can bring back a life on the verge of being extinguished.
Intelligence and Instinct
Intelligence is not an attribute of the vital principle. Plants are alive, but they do not think; they have only organic life. Intelligence and matter are independent of each other; a body may be alive yet lack intelligence, but intelligence can be expressed only through material organs. Only union with spirit endows animalized matter with intelligence.
Intelligence is a special faculty possessed by certain classes of organic beings, which endows them with thought, the power of will, and awareness of their own existence and individuality. It also gives them the means to establish relations with the external world and to provide for their own needs.
We may therefore distinguish the following: first, inanimate beings, formed of matter alone, without vitality or intelligence; these are the solid bodies of minerals. Second, animate, non-thinking beings, formed of matter and endowed with vitality but not intelligence. Third, animate beings, formed of matter, endowed with vitality, and possessed of an intelligent principle that gives them the ability to think.
The source of intelligence is the universal intelligence.
It would be only an imprecise comparison to say that every intelligent being draws and assimilates a portion of intelligence from the universal source in the same way that it draws and assimilates the principle of material life, because intelligence is a faculty proper to each being and comprises its mental individuality. Besides, there are matters that humans are not allowed to comprehend; this is one of them, for now.
Instinct is not exactly something other than intelligence; it is a type of intelligence. Instinct is non-reasoning intelligence, through which all beings provide for their own needs.
A line cannot be drawn between instinct and intelligence so as to determine when one ends and the other begins, for they frequently commingle. However, the actions belonging to instinct can very well be distinguished from those belonging to intelligence.
It is not correct to say that instinctive faculties decrease as intellectual faculties increase. Instinct is always present, but humans neglect it. Instinct can lead us to the good; it almost always guides us, sometimes more surely than our reason. It never errs.
Reason is not always an infallible guide, because it may be distorted by pride, selfishness, and faulty education. Instinct does not reason, whereas reason calls for choice and endows human beings with free will.
Instinct is a rudimentary intelligence. It differs from intelligence per se in that its manifestations are almost always spontaneous, while those of intelligence are the result of thought and deliberate action.
Instinct manifests in various ways according to different species and their needs. In beings with consciousness and the perception of external things, it allies itself with intelligence—that is, with will and freedom.